After the commissioners finished an executive session to discuss legal and property matters, the regular meeting started with an opportunity for public comment. There were no comments given.

It was announced that Blessing has been reappointed to the board, Gary Butterworth has been selected to replace Hoyt and Bob Bledsoe from Cheyenne County was selected to replace Leinsdorg.

Bill Ryan, director of the State Board of Land Commissioners, presents a gift to outgoing Commissioner Thomas Hoyt, while Commissioner Tom Gray looks on. (Callie Jones/Journal-Advocate)

Following recognition of Hoyt and Beverly Rave, field operations manager, who has been selected to receive the Colorado Cattlemen's Association's Public Service Award, the board took action on several items.

Those items included six Investment and Development Funds projects, costing a total of $345,000. The projects support line of business revenue and value enhancement initiatives, as well as specific property infrastructure investment.

Among the projects is a potential partnership with Ducks Unlimited for a water recharge/habitat restoration project along the South Platte River, a cost of $40,000. There would also be two other parts to this project, including Park County wetland mitigation project phase-II, a cost of $60,000 and Larimer County stream mitigation and habitat restorations, a cost of $10,000.

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Total cost of the project would be $100,000.

“I have concerns with all of these (projects),” Blessing said. “These don't feel, to me, like investments, they feel to me like speculations and that we are, well, let's throw $100,000 at this, let's throw $100,000 into this and maybe something will land, maybe we'll get lucky.”

He said he understands a lot of thought and planning went into the project proposals, “but if I personally had $350,000 that I was going to invest, I don't think I would invest it on things that are highly, highly speculative in terms of whether there will ever be any kind of payoff whatsoever.”

Blessing referred specifically to another project involving exploring and drilling for gold under a future reservoir site in Lake County.

After some discussion the commissioners decided table the projects listed above, as well as two others and approve two of the six projects due to their time sensitivity. The projects approved include demolition of a building at Fourth and Elizabeth Streets in Pueblo, a cost of $50,000, and redoing the bathrooms at Bohart House, south of Ellicott, and rebuilding the loading chutes on the Brett Gray Ranch in Rush, a cost of $20,000.

The other projects were tabled so the commissioners can get more information about the return on investment for each project.

Besides the previous projects mentioned, the other two projects that were tabled are improvements to a sod farm canal, a cost of $35,000, and an assessment of the voluntary carbon market and demand for wetland mitigation opportunities, a cost of $40,000.

In other business, the commissioners approved initiating a non-simultaneous exchange of 640 acres of School Trust Property, 10 miles south and one mile west of Holyoke in Phillips County, with a minimum price of $2,639,200, and established that the value of the improvements would be $375,700. The commissioners noted the trees that have been planted are part of the value of the property and would need to stay.

Danny Skalla, district manager for the northeast district of the Colorado State Land Board, listed a number of reasons the property should be sold at this time: Wells within the Ogallala Aquifer are experiencing a declining water table, and water is being diverted to meet the terms of the Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska Compact. The Republican River Water Conservation District is assessing $14.50 per irrigated acre to help pay for the water diversion and that amount is double what most irrigated land farmers pay. Irrigation costs are increasing on an annual basis; electricity has increased 15 to 20 percent over the last three years; and wells on the property are in compliance with the requirement that all wells with the district must be monitored for expansion over appropriated acres and must have measuring meters in place.

“Essentially what we're trying to do here is create a single policy that handles all of our leasing activities and it's focused exclusively on the delegation of decision making to the staff for very specific types of leases,” said Tobin Follenweider, deputy director for the Colorado State Land Board.

“We wanted to make something clear, concise and at the same time allow the board to continue, obviously, functioning in its fiduciary role as decision makers over the trust.”

He also pointed out the policy eliminates 17 existing independent policies for making lease decisions, which were very disjointed.

His goal was to focus not so much on details of how decisions are made, but more on what decisions are made by whom.

Follenweider said they want to “focus the board's decisions every month on those areas that have the greatest impact on trust land.” The board will be informed about all leasing activities through an annual report.

The one thing he noted they've done that's different than what they've done is given a specific role to the attorney general's office.

The board also approved a sand and gravel lease with Robins Construction, LLLP, in Conejos County and appointed Jean Krause of Walden, Dave Soucie of Silverthorne, John Rich of Walden, Jerry Abboud of Thornton and Deb Alpe of Walden to the Colorado State Forest Advisory Board.

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